Finland’s Social Insurance Institution (Kela) announced on 21 September 2026 that all online portals—including OmaKela for individuals and the employer interface—will be offline from 06:00 to 20:00 local time on Saturday 26 September due to a major software upgrade. During the first six hours, even the main kela.fi website will be inaccessible. The blackout hits at an awkward moment for expatriates and frequent travellers who rely on the portals to submit residence-based benefit applications, European Health Insurance Card requests and A1 certificates needed for short-term postings within the EU. Kela confirms that forms cannot be downloaded during the outage and that data saved in unfinished applications may not auto-restore. Employers planning to file batch applications for posted-worker documents or reimbursement claims are advised to complete submissions by Friday evening or wait until Monday 28 September. Kela’s customer-service phone lines will operate as normal, but agents cannot access back-end systems to verify claims. Mobility teams should inform employees on the move—particularly those whose family-benefit payments fall due at the end of the month—to avoid cash-flow surprises. Travellers collecting tax-free social-security refunds via the Tax Administration’s MyTax portal are unaffected. Kela says the upgrade will improve two-factor authentication and pave the way for later integration with the EU’s planned pan-European Social-Security Pass, expected to launch in 2027.
Source: Kela
